“And this again have you done, you have covered the altar of the Lord with tears, with weeping, and bellowing, so that I have no more a regard to sacrifice, neither do I accept any atonement at your hands. [14] And you have said: For what cause? Because the Lord hath been witness between thee, and the wife of thy youth, whom thou hast despised: yet she was thy partner, and the wife of thy covenant. [15] Did not one make her, and she is the residue of his spirit? And what doth one seek, but the seed of God? Keep then your spirit, and despise not the wife of thy youth.” ~ Malachi 2

I cannot now find the disgusting article I briefly scanned yesterday, but it was written about “what to do” when your ex-husband or ex-wife “marries” someone new. The basic advice was, if for example, they like their step parent, put your children’s feelings ahead of your own, because that’s what being a parent means blah blah.

Sorry, no. The time to do that was *before* you got divorced, you cretin. (I’m addressing the article author there). There are many issues at play, but there is no way that good behaviour can be determined by the feelings of one person or another. Good grief! This is simply a nightmare of a minefield of emotions.

No, what we need here – and at all times – are good morals. Let me demonstrate.

Take the situation of an abandoned husband, who did nothing seriously deserving of marital separation (ie no violence, or adultery). These days it’s more likely that women will leave their husbands for no good reason. So, the idiotic article advised that he simply has to lump everything because everyone else’s feeeeeeeelings come first. This is because the only rule that now exists is that adulterers should never feel bad. That would be wrong! And mean. And judgmental.

Let me give our fictional man some proper advice. You’ve done nothing seriously wrong if there was no violence in the marriage, you’re not a psychopath, and you didn’t commit adultery. Because your children love and need both you and their mother it is indeed best if you try hard not to slag her off in their presence. This is indeed where you need to try to put their feelings ahead of yours. But here’s the thing. Because the slut left you and is now committing adultery with someone else, doesn’t mean you have to tolerate more embarrassment and general garbage from these adulterers. As far as possible have as little to do with them as you can. While not slagging off their mother, do find a gentle way to tell your children that what she has done is wrong. Do let them know it’s still right for them to love her, but that loving her doesn’t mean agreeing with everything she does. These messages have to be geared towards a child’s maturity level, of course. There is nothing in the Rule Book which says you have to like anything your “ex-wife” (in fact, your wife, regardless of wicked laws) does or says or thinks. You certainly don’t have to like the blackguard she’s committing adultery with (even if they are in a fake “marriage”) or anything about him. Your main job is to protect your poor children from him, if you can, because even if he’s not actually violent to them, he is a very bad example. Unfortunately, the law is not on your side in any of this, so be careful. In most cases, I think, your best way forward is to be as good an example to everyone around you, but that means having firm principles and trying hard to stick to them. You might not think you are needed, but you actually are, more than ever. Things aren’t always as they seem.

Whatever you do, don’t give in to other people’s idiotic views about how you should see things! In this case, you’re right and these two are wrong. It doesn’t give you the right to exact revenge – it gives you the confidence to act justly. Assert your fatherly rights as much as you can.

But what happens when the children start to talk a lot about their mother, and particularly if they talk about their “step father.” You can probably act in a number of reasonable ways, but if it were me, I would simply make it a rule that the children are not allowed to speak to me of this person, unless there is something bad happening that you need to know about, in order to protect them. Make it clear that it’s a rule. You don’t even have to tell them why, because you are their father and they owe you obedience, but you could simply say “because I don’t like it, and I don’t need to hear it.” And you don’t need to hear it. It’s perfectly fine to put your legitimate needs ahead of other people’s whims and nonsense. The poor children are actually in need of strong guidance and that’s actually what you’re giving them here. Don’t teach them to be a doormat.

Do not think a new “relationship” for you will fix things, either. It won’t. It will certainly make things much worse, not least because adultery is evil, and it will eat away at your soul. Don’t be fooled by all the adulterers who seem happy. Incidentally, why do people seem to believe that most marriages are unhappy, but most adulterous relationships are happy? How stupid! If the person you chose to be with the first time made you unhappy, why wouldn’t the second one? Good grief! Don’t people pay attention?

Stop the crap. Grow a brain. Grow a spine. Fix yourself! And then start to fix those around you by simply holding the line. Do this as consistently as possible for about a decade or so, and eventually the semi-reasonable people close to you will “get it” and the rest won’t be worth troubling with. For the obstinate people in your life, you need to pray and fast. Also, keeping contact to a minimum is probably best for all.

This is the best advice you’ll ever get on divorce and “remarriage” (ie adultery) if I say so myself. 🙂

I’ve been feeling a bit frustrated, lately, with conversations about the Faith. I’ve been trying to work out exactly why, and I think I’ve worked it out.

Obviously, since I believe the Faith is true, I wish for all souls to be saved, which means that I wish for all souls to become Catholic, and for all Catholics to become holy. This is clearly logical. However, the fact is that most people in the world are not Catholic, and I have no problem accepting that this the reality. To aid a person in becoming a Catholic might require a number of things, and this will tend to vary from person to person.

One thing that will always be required, is the informing of the person about the teachings of the Church. Another thing which will usually be needed is to answer any reasonable questions he has about it. If his questions are unreasonable, it will be because he’s irrational about it: either he loves his sins too much; or he will be afraid of the possible results of his conversion, such as losing friends. There may be other causes of his irrationality – but it is irrational. This leads then, to intellectual dishonesty, and that’s one thing I just can’t stand.

So, basically, that’s the source of my present frustration, as far as I can tell. It doesn’t bother me at all if someone is not yet persuaded to convert, for these things take a lot of time. All I want is to see intellectual honesty. Here is one example: how honest is it for a protestant, or secularist, to be quizzing Catholics about some point of philosophy or doctrine (eg the existence of God, or the corruption of some members of the Catholic clergy) when hundreds and even probably thousands of Catholic writers have *already* answered these same questions over and over and over? Hint: it isn’t.

I’m just about at the point of saying “Google it” to every question, but that’s very much against the heart of a teacher.

People are either becoming Catholic, or they are anti-Catholic and here’s why:

The Bergoglian Age is what we’re calling this execrable thing we’re living in. For those who don’t know, Pope Francis was Jorge Bergoglio before his election to the Papacy, that fateful day in March 2013.

Miss Hilary White has written up an excellent blog post, as is her custom. She is the one who has coined it The Bergoglian Age, I think. Her post requires a response from a large number of faithful Catholics, imo. Please do read the whole thing, here.

Her thesis is simple. The Church crisis we’ve been living through for now half a century may last another half a century. It’s bad, and we should assume it will get worse.

And NO earthly creature is coming to rescue us. No cardinal, no bishop. No one on earth.

We’re it.

She says:

Things are the way they are. And we need to start preparing ourselves in a concrete manner for a long period of spiritual and ecclesiastical famine.

So now what?

Worst Case Scenario: we have no access at all to the Sacraments. And let’s assume we can’t get to any place where there is a priest who can administer them.

Remain in a state of grace. Just don’t commit mortal sin. Get serious now about holiness, so that we’re in a better place to die in a state of grace.

Learn by heart, if we haven’t already, a traditional Act of Contrition. If we have the misfortune to commit mortal sin and we no longer have access to the Sacrament of Penance, then we will need to make a Perfect Act of Contrition before we die. I recommend we all get in the habit of trying to do this at the end of every day. I say “trying” because really, only God knows if we have made a perfect Act of Contrition.

Pray the Rosary daily for fortification, as well as for conversing with our Beloved JESUS and his Mother.

Get in the habit now of daily mental prayer, even if it’s just for five minutes. I am currently using the meditations by St Alphonsus Liguori on the Sacred Heart, and using this method for mental prayer. Use whatever you like, of course, I’m just giving an example in case it helps.

Save up to buy a portable altar, just in case you can get a priest to come say Mass in your home some time.

Promote the message of Fatima. Well, learn it first! (Preaching to myself, here).

If things don’t get quite that bad, then we should try to avail ourselves of attendance at Mass at least some times during the week,and obviously on Sunday. This is one area in which I think we will simply have to use our prudential judgment and obey our conscience. This, in fact, is my basic plan – pray, do what seems to be the right thing, and help others as much as I can. Because we can’t really predict exactly how this is all going to unfold, I think we have to be prepared to keep re-evaluating. The main thing will be to keep trusting in God.

I think I can say with a fair amount of confidence that almost all of us will come pretty close to despair. We have to decide now to just remain committed, and to make the best decisions we can day to day.

As for what to teach our children, or those who are thinking of converting, I think a fairly detailed study of the very turbulent times in Church history would be very helpful. Even though I believe we are going through the worst period ever, a study of Church history will still help to keep many things in perspective.

I am also listening to an audio recording of The Lord of the Rings. I just can’t shake the impression that it was (knowingly or otherwise) written as a manual for our time. It does, of course, have universal and lasing themes, but still, bits of it are very helpful. I don’t recommend we sit round watching the DVDs every night.

One thing that’s helpful for me is remembering that from the moment of its creation, the Fellowship of the Ring was beset with internal strife as well as outward pressure. If that’s not an accurate description of political conservatism and trad Catholic life, I don’t know what is!

I think that if God doesn’t intervene in the next couple of years, by sending His Mother, and the Triumph of Her Immaculate Heart, then the Muslims and/or commies will just set about killing us in earnest. Clearly, they are all violently, rabidly insane.

Don’t be fooled, though. Filthy little commies come in all shapes and sizes: here is a Tasmanian version:

What does it mean? Well, I’m just a housewife, so I have no expertise, but the sign clearly matches *fully* the various elements of the Apocalypse 12 sign. The sun, the moon, the twelve stars, and importantly, Jupiter, have all been exactly where they should, to line up with this sign in scripture. As for its meaning, it’s clear from the authoritative Douay-Rheims version that the Church is bringing forth her children, and Christ in them, as she suffers the pains of childbirth at this time. (No kidding!) Who are her children? Us! – all the faithful Catholics alive at this time. We were born for this.

What this means in detail, I don’t know, but I am watching and praying, as Our Lord commanded, and we wait to see what He will accomplish.

Interestingly, on that day (Texas time) I read that the Filial Correction had been issued. This seemed very significant – not so much in terms of concrete and immediate results, but in the spiritual realm.

of course, in our time we just have to keep on keeping on, as Catholics have always had to – Pray, Fast, Give Alms, Study, Work.

Maybe read some Belloc:

Or this great book:

Apart from what I can do, it’s just a matter of waiting for the

Triumph of the Immaculate Heart.

Look! A picture of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Risen from the Dead, just to cheer you up.

I’m trying to keep this post simple, for the benefit of non-Catholics who will read it.

Putting things in their simplest terms, and bearing in mind that I might not fully understand certain aspects of Church teaching, I will endeavour to write what’s on my mind.

For His own reasons, God has permitted us to suffer under what must surely be the worst Pope in history. It is certainly possible for the Church to have a bad man sitting as Pope. It’s happened many times before and the doctrine of Infallibility is narrowly defined, so that it certainly doesn’t mean the moral impeccability of the man who holds the office. That said, Francis is a disaster.

The Church has survived bad Popes, and as bad as this one is, the Bride of Christ (the Church) will survive this too. But it’s really ugly.

How Bad Is It?

The Catholic Herald has something to say about the recent scandal with child abuse, and it shows just how bad things are.

The man is also clearly a (material) heretic and has even blasphemed on more than one occasion. Let that sink in. For some more information on heresy, check out the Catholic Encyclopedia, but briefly, heresy means disagreement with one or more doctrines of the Church.

He is, in my opinion, a Peronist Thug, as is outlined in the very popular e-book, “The Dictator Pope” by pseudonymous writer, ‘Marcantonio Colonna’ (Soon available in hardback).

So today I woke up to this bizarre “interview” given by The Francis to one of his Flying Monkeys, Fr Antonio Spadaro. Italian is here. English Google translation is here. I notice that Google translate gives “Holy Father” as “Sister Father” for some reason and it was so clearly wrong that I made a point of checking the Italian, even though I don’t really read it. So I guess the translation could just be really, really terrible, but even so, I’ve heard more than I ever want to from this Pope and even when he is translated by reliable people, what comes out is “word salad.” It’s just a bunch of guff.

But at this passage, I burst out laughing. It’s simply mad:

What resistances did you encounter and how did you experience them?

“I never say before the difficulty that it is a” resistance “, because it would mean giving up discerning, which I want to do instead. It is easy to say that there is resistance and not to realize that in that contrast there can also be a shred of truth. This also helps me to relativize many things that, at first sight, seem to resist, but in reality it is a reaction that arises from a misunderstanding … But when I realize that there is real resistance, of course, I’m sorry. Some people tell me it’s normal that there is resistance when someone wants to make changes. The famous “it’s always been like that” reigns everywhere, it’s a great temptation that we all lived. The resistances after Vatican II, still present, have this meaning: to relativize, to water down the Council. I’m even more sorry when somebody enlist in a resistance campaign. And unfortunately I see this too. I can not deny that there are any resistances. I see them and I know them. There are doctrinal resistance. For mental health I do not read the websites of this so-called “resistance”. I know who I am, I know the groups, but I do not read them, simply for my mental health. If there is something very serious, they inform me why they know it. It is a displeasure, but we must move forward. When I perceive resistances, I try to dialogue, when dialogue is possible; but some resistances come from people who believe they have the true doctrine and accuse you of being a heretic. When in these people, for what they say or write, I do not find spiritual goodness, I simply pray for them. I feel sorry, but I do not dwell on this feeling for mental hygiene.”

Maybe it’s just the translation (I think not) but these look like the rantings of a madman!

Well, now, who woulda thunk? I was reading the lovely Lingard today, on the early days of Britain, up to the early fourth century, and after observing that Christianity had already spread through the Island to a significant degree, he said the following:

It might have been expected that the British writers would have preserved the memory of an event so important in their eyes as the conversion of their fathers. But their traditions have been so embellished or disfigured by fiction, that without collateral evidence, it is hardly possible to distinguish in them what is real from what is imaginary.

Lingard says that the British Church was so well established by the end of the third century that it is written of by contemporaries as equal with the Churches in Gaul and Spain. We know also that at the Council of Arles in 314, the British Bishops, Elborius of York and Restitutus of London were present.

He relates a pleasing episode too, about Caesar Constantius, during the time of the Augustii, Maximian and Diocletian. This is not specific to Britain, but it’s of interest. Constantius was the Caesar (ie the heir to the Western half of the Empire) at the time that Diocletian issued a severe persecution of Christians. Refusal to worship the pagan gods was made punishable by death. Constantius was not in favour of this, however he informed the Christian officers of his houshold that they must determine to either

resign their employments, or to abjure the worship of Christ. If some among them preferred their interest to their religion, they received the reward which their perfidy deserved – as Caesar [Constantius] dismissed him from their service, observing that he would never trust the fidelity of men who had proven themselves traitors to their God.

I’ve had some recent exchanges with PH on Twitter about the Reformation.

Preamble

My own argument about the Reformation is not who was more violent – that’s not the real issue, serious though it is, but rather, that the Reformation was a top-down imposition of religion upon the populace. This is in contrast to the Protestant propaganda that the Reformation was essentially a grass roots movement and inevitable. It was nothing of the kind. This change in religion was catastrophic because the religion was changed from the true religion to a false one and the result has been modernia, with all its problems, including destroying bakers’ livelihoods because they won’t bake gay cakes, and putting men into the women’s bathrooms. This was the inevitable result of the break with Rome, which was forced upon the English people. It is why we had The Sixties. Mine is an argument against Whig history, which as I understand it, is the idea that all was pretty much terrible, until the Reformation and Glory and all that good stuff, at least until the 20th C. It is irrelevant to argue against this contention by pointing out that Catholicism was made the state religion by Constantine, for so it was, and a good thing, too. My concerns are about correcting the overarching historical narrative.

The Point of Issue

In our exchanges, Mr Hitchens informed me that the original matter he and others had been arguing was the qualitative difference between Mary’s persecution of Protestants for their faith alone, and Elizabeth’s (undoubtedly harsh) treatment of individuals who posed a political threat to her.

Even though this argument doesn’t interest me much, I thought it would be worth pointing out Cobbett’s perspective. It is not necessary for a Catholic to defend any of Mary’s policies in order to be a good Catholic, and I have never defended her policies. It’s also not necessary to do so in order to show that the Reformation was a bad development, or that Elizabeth’s reign was despotic and unjust, far from her myth.

Cobbett, who wrote “A History of the Reformation” in 1824, was an Anglican, and doesn’t defend Mary’s policy regarding heretics either, but he does illuminate it and give some points to discuss.

Here are some of his article titles, FYI:

LETTER VIII.

MARY’S ACCESSION TO THE THRONE.
HER MILD AND BENEVOLENT LAWS.
THE NATION RECONCILED TO THE CHURCH.
THE QUEEN’S GREAT GENEROSITY AND PIETY.
HER MARRIAGE WITH PHILIP.
FOX’S “MARTYRS,”

LETTER IX.

MARY AT WAR WITH FRANCE.
THE CAPTURE OF CALAIS BY THE FRENCH.
THE DEATH OF QUEEN MARY.
ACCESSION OF QUEEN ELIZABETH.
HER CRUEL AND BLOODY LAWS RELATIVE TO RELIGION.
HER PERFIDY WITH REGARD TO FRANCE.
THE DISGRACE SHE BROUGHT UPON HER GOVERNMENT AND THE COUNTRY BY THIS
PERFIDY.
HER BASE AND PERPETUAL SURRENDER OF CALA1S.

His basic position is that the whole of Christendom had been Catholic for hundreds of years and then the break came in England with Henry and Betsy, very much for the worse. He says:

the “REFORMATION,”
as it is called, was engendered in beastly lust, brought forth in
hypocrisy and perfidy, and cherished and fed by plunder, devastation, and by rivers of innocent English and Irish blood; and that, as to
its more remote consequences, they are, some of them, now before as in that misery, that beggary, that nakedness, that hunger, that everlasting wrangling and spite, which now stare us in the face and
stun our ears at every turn, and which the “Reformation” has given us in exchange for the ease and happiness and harmony and Christian charity, enjoyed so abundantly, and for so many ages, by our Catholic forefathers.

His argument is that Betsy was a great hypocrite and the worst woman who ever lived, not excepting Jezebel herself. She swore to Mary she was Catholic saying she prayed God that the earth might open and swallow her, if she were not a true Roman Catholic, and which is the only reason she was named as Mary’s heir, and then violently persecuted her people for not abandoning the religion she had so lately professed, only because she didn’t want to risk losing the crown she had hypocritically gained.

She knew that she had no hereditary right;
she knew that the law ascribed her birth to adultery. She never could
think of reigning quietly over a people the head of whose Church
refused to acknowledge her right to the crown. And resolving to wear
that crown, she resolved, cost what ruin or blood it might, to compel
her people to abandon that very religion, her belief in which she
had, a few months before, declared, by praying to “God that the earth
might open and swallow her alive, if she were not a true Roman Catholic.”

Regarding Mary’s policy against heretics (and I have not edited the typos) he says:

246. We have seen, in paragraph 200 and 201, what a Babel of
opinions and of religions had been introduced by CRANMER and his
crew; and we have also seen, that immorality, that vice of all sorts,
that enmity and strife incessant, had been the consequence. Besides
this, it was so natural that the Queen should desire to put down all
these sects, and that she should be so anxious on the subject, that
we are not at all surprised that, if she saw all other means
ineffectual for the purpose, she should resort to means of the utmost
severity that the laws of the land allowed of, for the accomplishment
of that purpose. The traitors and the leading rebels of her reign
were all, or affected to be, of the new sects. Though small in
number, they made up for that disadvantage by their indefatigable
malignity; by their incessant efforts to trouble the state, and
indeed, to destroy the Queen herself. But I am for rejecting all
apologies for her, founded on provocations given to her: and also for
rejecting all apologies founded on the disposition and influence of
her councillors; for, if she had been opposed to the burning of
heretics, that burning would, certainly, never have taken place. That
burning is fairly to be ascribed to her; but, as even the malignant
HUME gives her credit for sincerity, is it not just to conclude, that
her motive was to put an end to the propagation, amongst her people,
of errors which she deemed destructive of their souls, and the
permission of the propagation of which she deemed destructive of her
own? And, there is this much to be said in defence of her motive, at
any rate, that these new lights, into however many sects they might
be divided, all agreed in teaching the abominable doctrine of
salvation by faith alone, without regard to works.

247. As a preliminary to the punishment of heretics there was an
Act of Parliament passed in December, 1554 (a year and a half after
the Queen came to the throne) , to restore the ancient statutes,
relative to heresy. These statutes were first passed against the
LOLLARDS in the reigns of RICHARD II. and HENRY IV. And they
provided, that heretics, who were obstinate, should be burnt. These
statutes were altered in the reign of HENRY VIII., in order that he
might get the property of heretics; and, in that of EDWARD, they were
repealed. Not out of mercy, however; but because heresy was,
according to those statutes, to promulgate opinions contrary to the
Catholic Faith; and this did, of course, not suit the state of things
under the new church, “as by law established.” Therefore, it was then
held, that heresy was punishable by common law, and, that, in case of
obstinacy, heretics might be burnt; and, accordingly, many were
punished and some burnt, in that reign, by process at common law; and
these were, too, Protestants dissenting from CRANMER’s Church, who
himself condemned them to the flames. Now, however, the Catholic
religion being again the religion of the country, it was thought
necessary to return to ancient statutes; which, accordingly, were re-
enacted. That which had been the law, during seven reigns, comprising
nearly two centuries, and some of which reigns had been amongst the
most glorious and most happy that England had ever known, one of the
Kings having won the title of King of France and another of them
having actually been crowned at Paris; that which had been the law
for so long a period was now the law again: so that here was nothing
new, at any rate. And, observe, though these statutes were again
repealed, when ELIZABETH’s policy induced her to be a Protestant, she
enacted others to supply their place, and that both she and her
successor, JAMES I., burnt heretics; though they had, as we shall
see, a much more expeditious and less noisy way of putting out of the
world those who still had the constancy to adhere to the religion of
their fathers.

248. The laws, being passed, were not likely to remain a dead
letter. They were put in execution chiefly in consequence of
condemnations, in the spiritual court, by BONNER, Bishop of London.
The punishment was inflicted in the usual manner; dragging to the
place of execution, and then burning to death, the sufferer being
tied to a stake, in the midst of a pile of fagots, which, when set on
fire, consumed him. Bishop GARDINER, the Chancellor, has been, by
Protestant writers, charged with being the adviser of this measure. I
can find no ground for this charge, while all agree that POLE, who
was now become Archbishop of Canterbury, in the place of CRANMER,
disapproved of it. It is also undeniable, that a Spanish friar, the
confessor of Philip, preaching before the Queen, expressed his
disapprobation of it. Now, as the Queen was much more likely to be
influenced, if at all, by POLE, and especially by PHILIP, than by
GARDINER, the fair presumption is, that it was her own measure. And,
as to BONNER, on whom so much blame has been thrown on this account,
he had, indeed, been most cruelly used by CRANMER and his
Protestants; but, there was the Council continually accusing all the
Bishops (and he more than any of the rest) of being too slow in the
performance of this part of their duty. Indeed, it is manifest, that,
in this respect, the Council spoke the then almost universal
sentiment; for though the French ceased not to hatch rebellions
against the Queen, none of the grounds of the rebels ever were, that
she punished heretics. Their complaints related almost solely to the
connexion with Spain; and never to the “flames of Smithfield,” though
we of latter times have been made to believe, that nothing else was
thought of; but, the fact is, the persons put to death were chiefly
of very infamous character, many of them foreigners, almost the whole
of them residing in London, and called, in derision by the people at
large, the “London Gospellers.” Doubtless, out of two hundred and
seventy-seven persons (the number stated by HUME on authority of Fox)
who were thus punished, some may have been real martyrs to their
opinions, and have been sincere and virtuous persons; but, in this
number of 277, many were convicted felons, some clearly traitors, as
RIDLEY and CRANMER. These must be taken from the number, and we may;
surely, take such as were alive when Fox first published his book,
and who expressly begged to decline the honour of being enrolled
amongst his “Martyrs.” As a proof of Fox’s total disregard of truth,
there was, in the next reign, a Protestant parson, as Anthony Wood (a
Protestant) tells us, who, in a sermon, related, on authority of Fox,
that a Catholic of the name of GRIMWOOD had been, as Fox said, a
great enemy of the Gospellers, had been “punished by a judgment of
God,” and that his “bowels fell out of his body.” GRIMWOOD was not
only alive at the time when the sermon was preached, but happened to
be present in the church to hear it; and he brought an action of
defamation against the preacher! Another instance of Fox’s falseness
relates to the death of Bishop GARDINER. Fox and BURNET, and other
vile calumniators of the acts and actors in Queen Mary’s reign, say,
that GARDINER, on the day of the execution of LATIMER and RIDLEY,
kept dinner waiting till the news of their suffering should arrive,
and that the Duke of Norfolk, who was to dine with him, expressed
great chagrin at the delay; that, when the news came, “transported
with joy,” they sat down to table, where GARDINER was suddenly seized
with the disury, and died, in horrible torments, in a fortnight after
wards. Now, LATIMER. and RIDLEY were put to death on the 16th of
October; and COLLIER, in his Ecclesiastical History, p. 386, states,
that GARDINER opened the Parliament on the 21st of October; that he
attended in Parliament twice afterwards; that he died on the 12th of
November, of the gout, and not of disury; and that, as to the Duke of
Norfolk, he had been dead a year when this event took place! What a
hypocrite, then, must that man he, who pretends to believe in this
Fox! Yet, this infamous book has, by the arts of the plunderers and
their descendants, been circulated to a boundless extent amongst the
people of England, who have been taught to look upon all the thieves,
felons, and traitors, whom Fox calls “Martyrs,” as sufferers
resembling St. Stephen, St. Peter, and St. Paul!

249. The real truth about these “Martyrs,” is, that they were,
generally, a set of most wicked wretches, who sought to destroy the
Queen and her Government, and under the pretence of conscience and
superior piety, to obtain the means of again preying upon the people.
No mild means could reclaim them: those means had been tried: the
Queen had to employ vigorous means, or, to suffer her people to
continue to be torn by the religious factions, created, not by her,
but by her two immediate predecessors, who had been aided and abetted
by many of those who now were punished, and who were worthy of ten
thousand deaths each, if ten thousand deaths could have been endured.
They were, without a single exception, apostates, perjurers, or
plunderers; and, the greater part of them had also been guilty of
flagrant high treason against Mary herself, who had spared their
lives; but whose lenity they had requited by every effort within
their power to overset her authority and the Government. To make
particular mention of all the ruffians that perished upon this
occasion, would be a task as irksome as it would be useless; but,
there were amongst them, three of CRANMER’s Bishops and himself! For,
now, justice, at last, overtook this most mischievous of all
villains, who had justly to go to the same stake that he had unjustly
caused so many others to be tied to; the three others were HOOPER,
LATIMER, and RIDLEY, each of whom was, indeed, inferior in villany to
CRANMER, but to few other men that have ever existed.

Cobbett addresses the burnings:

The “fires of Smithfield” have a horrid sound; but, to
say nothing about the burnings of Edward VI., Elizabeth, and James
I., is it more pleasant to have one’s bowels ripped out, while the
body is alive (as was Elizabeth’s favourite way), than to be burnt?
Protestants have even exceeded Catholics in the work of punishing
offenders of this sort. And, they have punished, too, with less
reason on their side. The Catholics have one faith; the Protestants
have fifty faiths: and yet, each sect, whenever it gets uppermost,
punishes, in some way or other, the rest as offenders. Even at this
very time, there are, according to a return, recently laid before the
House of Commons, no less than fifty-seven persons, who have, within
a few years, suffered imprisonment and other punishments added to it,
as offenders against religion;

Here is Cobbett’s perspective on Mary, his final paragraph on her life:

258. As to the mass of suffering, supposing the whole of the 277
persons, who suffered in the reign of Mary, to have suffered solely
for the sake of religion instead of having been, like CRANMER and
RIDLEY, traitors and felons as well as offenders on the score of
religion; let us suppose the whole 277 to have suffered for offences
against religion, did the mass of suffering surpass the mass of
suffering; on this same account, during the reign of the late King?
And, unless Smithfield and burning have any peculiar agony, any thing
worse than death, to impart, did Smithfield ever witness so great a
mass of suffering as the Old Bailey has witnessed, on account of
offences against that purely Protestant invention, bank notes?
Perhaps this invention, expressly intended to keep out Popery, has
cost ten times, if not ten times ten times, the blood that was shed
in the reign of her, whom we still have the injustice, or the folly,
to call the “bloody Queen Mary,” all whose excellent qualities, all
whose exalted virtues, all her piety, charity, generosity, sacred
adherence to her faith and her word, all her gratitude, and even
those feelings of anxiety for the greatness and honour of England,
which feelings hastened her to the grave: all these, in which she was
never equalled by any sovereign that sat on the English throne,
ALFRED alone excepted, whose religion she sought to re-establish for
ever; all these are to pass for nothing, and we are to call her the
“bloody Mary,” because it suits the views of those who fatten on the
spoils of that Church which never suffered Englishmen to bear the
odious and debasing name of pauper.

An Additional Point

PH said that the policy of Elizabeth towards Catholics being required to attend Anglican services couldn’t be considered as persecution in those days of burnings etc. The basic argument was that Catholics should have attended to save themselves from punishment, because there was nothing objectionable to Catholic doctrine in the services. Of course, the objection is that even to attend such a service is to be seen as condoning the break with Rome, which is schism, which is clearly at odds with Catholic doctrine.

I replied that I did count her policy as persecution of Catholics, to which he replied “Then you have lost all sense of proportion”.

This simply assumes that the Catholic conscience must judge in the same way that PH’s conscience judges. If you hold the position that it doesn’t matter to God where or how you worship, then of course it’s no big deal to expect other people to do likewise, especially to avoid severe punishments. It is also always dangerous for the Catholic’s soul to simply “go along to get along.” It’s a danger to the soul and when many Catholics do this in a nation, it’s a danger to the Faith in that place.

Regarding proportion, of course there is one thing worse than violent, physical death: Hell. It’s a dangerous thing to disobey the certain judgement of your own conscience. I hope I would never do this. Having said that, my argument was that I counted it as persecution, not that I consider attending a non-Catholic church to be physically worse than being burned, beheaded, ripped, quartered etc.

Comment Policy: I moderate the comments here heavily. If you wouldn’t say something to me, in front of my children in my own home, don’t say it here. That’s the rule. I don’t censor opinion as such, but there are limits related to civility and what’s commonly acceptable conversation in front of children in someone else’s home. This is a Catholic blog – you’re not in Kansas any more, Toto.

It’s not quite Christmas Day yet, but I plan to be off the computer as much as possible during the Christmas season. I only have 3 readers, but you’re all very high quality! So I wanted to give you Christmas Greetings. May God bless you.